On The Day That She Was Born
by history lady 24
Summary: A story about what little Tommy Branson was doing the day Lady Sybil Crawley entered the world. Set in Dublin, 1898.


_To all of you who've stopped by to read my silly little stories, thank you! As I'm stuck in Downton purgatory right now, having to wait until JANUARY for the new season, I've been thinking about season 2 quite a bit and will be posting some other stories in the coming weeks, including one that is my answer to the question of 'when did Sybil decide to go with Tom?' In the meantime, though, I give you a flashback to June, 1898, and the day that Lady Sybil Crawley was born._

_This fic was inspired by one of my favorite cds, which was put out by an American Christian artist named Steven Curtis Chapman several years ago. The songs on it are all about the different aspects of love. One of my favorites is a song called 11-6-64, in which he sings about what he might have been doing the day that his wife was born, when he was a child. Here's my take on that same concept, using Tom and Sybil._

**Dublin, the Spring of 1919, at the Branson Home**

"Alright Tommy, now tell me everything."

Tom met his mother's eyes across the kitchen table as he picked up the steaming cup of tea she'd just placed before him.

"All six years? Didn't you get any of my letters?" He knew the question was a bit saucy, but he was tired from the journey and worried about Sybil, suddenly in a new country and surrounded by new people. His mother had sent her upstairs just a few minutes earlier to settle in and rest before dinner.

Rose rolled her eyes heavenward. "You know what I mean, Tommy. Tell me about your Lady Sybil. If I'm to have the girl living under my roof for the next several weeks, and if I'm to have any hope of getting along with her at all, I need to know a bit more than what you've told me thus far. If I remember correctly from your rather limited letters," she paused here and narrowed her eyes slightly at her son, "I know that she is the Earl's youngest daughter, that she was a nurse during the war, that she is political, that she supports freedom for Ireland, despite being a member of the English aristocracy, and that you love her." Rose paused and set her tea cup down. "Now that's all well and fine, but that doesn't tell me much about her."

Tom met his mother's gaze with a steady blue stare. "Alright. What do you want to know?"

Rose breathed out slowly and leaned back slightly against the worn kitchen chair. "What's her full name?"

Tom smiled, thinking back to the day he'd asked Sybil the same question. "Sybil Patricia Crawley."

"And she's the third daughter, yes?"

Tom nodded. "Aye. There's Lady Mary, Lady Edith, and then Sybil."

"Lady Sybil." Rose corrected him.

Tom sighed and closed his eyes. "Ma, it's not Lady Sybil. She's just Sybil here. God knows it will probably be hard enough for her, being English and with that posh accent. Don't call her Lady Sybil, please. She doesn't want to use the title any more. It'll just make things harder, and that's not who she wants to be."

_And I suppose that you think that dropping the title makes everything ok? _The thought clouded Rose's brain. The expression on Tom's face, though, made her catch her tongue before she said it.

"How old is she? Is she of age, or do we have to worry about her father sending the law out after her to find her and take her back to England?"

…_Hunt you down with wild dogs…_ Tom could hear his Lordship's words at the cemetery again.

"She not under age, is she Tommy?" Rose's voice rose slightly as she asked the question again.

Her tone snapped Tom out of his thoughts. "No, Ma. She's not under age. She's twenty-one. She'll be having a birthday come June. She was born on June 22, 1898."

"In June. So she's a summer child." A slightly smile crossed Rose's face. "Well, I suppose we should have a dinner for her birthday this year, then…."

It was a few days later when Rose came across her old diaries while cleaning out her trunk. She'd been searching for something else and happened upon them while in pursuit. A smile crossed her face when she saw them. She'd kept a diary for several years, when the children were small, in hopes of recording their milestones. She remembered being fascinated as a young girl to discover that her own mother had done the same, and was therefore able to tell her exactly when she took her first steps, ate her first solid food, and saw the ocean for the first time.

_Saw the ocean._ A memory of the first time she took her own children to the ocean floated across her mind. It had been a beautiful day towards the beginning of summer. _Hold old were they then? _She tried to coax the clouds out of the scene. _It was before Claire left for service, so she must have been about fifteen or so, which means that Sean would have been thirteen, and Caitlin was ten, and Tommy about eight._ Her head snapped up abruptly. _Eight. The summer he was eight. That would have been 1898._

A look of disbelief settled in her eyes as she looked down again. _No, it couldn't be. _Reaching for a stack of the thin volumes at the bottom of the trunk, she folded her knees underneath her and settled back on her heels. 1898. There it was, the pink one with the tea stain on the bottom right corner.

She opened the diary tentatively, her hands hesitant. Rose was never really sure if she believed if soul mates, in the idea that one person was created solely for another, but she now had the feeling that she was about to find out. Turning the thin pages slowly, deliberately, she found the month of June. _The twenty-second. Tommy said the twenty-second. _In another moment her fingers found the page.

_"June 22nd, 1898. Took the children on a bit of a holiday today to the shore. It was the first time for all of them, save Claire, when she was very little. We all enjoyed ourselves, especially Tommy, who seemed especially happy today, though he did say the oddest thing when we were at the shore…._

**Dublin, June 22, 1898**

It was a day that seemed so ordinary at first, just a sunny Saturday in June, the first after the children were out of school. Rose had promised to take them to the shore that afternoon where they might play in the ocean, splashing and playing in the sunshine.

She had awoken earlier that morning than normal so she could do some more stitching. Truthfully she really shouldn't be going, taking the time away from her sewing. The flat also needed to be cleaned, and there was food to prepare tomorrow for luncheon after Mass. But something in her couldn't deny that she was looking forward to the day too, had been ever since the children had sent her little Tommy in to ask her, one evening as it was growing dark outside a week or so earlier.

All of her children knew that if anyone could get Ma to say yes to something, it was Tommy. He was her darling child, her little teasing boy who talked incessantly, ate cake with abandon, and always played hard, so hard.

Whenever she looked at Tommy she couldn't help but see her own dear husband, many years now gone. He had died was Brigid was just an infant, and Tommy was two. The others were all older, of course – Sean and Caitlin and Claire.

Tommy had been born with his pa's blue eyes, but it was later that his face started to take on the familiar planes. Sometimes she would catch herself staring at him, smiling at his antics, and she would wonder if that's what Patrick had looked like when he was a child. The thought often brought a pain in her heart and a smile to her face simultaneously. Her little Tommy – God's way of helping her remember Patrick after he was gone.

Finishing with her stitching, she moved into the kitchen to begin preparing a lunch for them to take to the beach. Getting there would be expensive enough, the entire family riding on the street car. She knew that there was no way to add a purchased lunch of fish and chips to the day. She sliced a loaf of bread and packed it, with some cheese, and some small cakes in the hamper. _A holiday isn't a holiday without a cake, now is it?_ she thought to herself as she covered the hamper with an old napkin.

As she turned to wash her hands in the basic before beginning to prepare breakfast, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Tommy, bounding downstairs towards her, his bright eyes shining at the prospect of the day's adventures. She hugged close as he came into the kitchen.

The moment that caught in her mind happened later, that afternoon, when they were at the beach and the children were all splashing in the water happily. She couldn't quite explain how, but Tommy had seemed different all day, a little more excited, a little more joyful, a little more, well – everything – than normal. A little more serious at turns, a little more happy. But oh – the look on his face when he saw the ocean. The endless brilliant blue that matched his eyes. He had run into the water first, before anyone else, and laughed so loud as the first wave came up and soaked his legs, bare where he had taken off his shoes and socks. There was something about him that day – it was as if he was experiencing everything on a higher plane than everyone else.

Once they got there, it didn't take long for Tommy's questions to start. He seemed to be always asking questions about any little thing in life – why the church bells rang out at noon, why the street cars were red, why the birds came back every spring.

Normally Tommy's questions annoyed his siblings. None of them were quite as curious as he was, and as a result they often did their best to ignore him. If anyone would take the time to answer him, it was normally Claire, his oldest sister. She'd been trying to enjoy her little family more, lately, knowing that she'd probably be leaving soon for a job in service, once she turned sixteen.

It was to Claire, then, that little Tommy turned that day. He had been skipping in the surf, throwing pebbles into the water with Sean, when he suddenly abandoned the game and ran over to where Claire was standing.

"What's over there?" Tommy asked, gesturing to the sea.

"Why that's the sea, Tommy," Claire responded. "You know that."

"Aye, of course I know that. Everyone does. But what's over there, where the sea ends?"

"More land, I suppose. Though it's a long ways off Tommy. A long way. If you ever wanted to go there you'd have to get on a boat and sail for hours and hours to go across."

Tommy squinted off in the direction that Claire's hand was pointing, as though he thought he would be able to make out the opposite shore if he tried hard enough.

Claire giggled at his expression.

"What kind of boat goes there?"

"Ferry boats, they're called. People pay money to ride on them, like we did this morning with the streetcar, and they take you to the other side."

"And what's that called? The land on the other side?"

Claire frowned, her brow wrinkling slightly. "That's England, Tommy." She said the words quietly, with reservation.

"That's England." Tommy tried to mimic her tone. He paused for a moment and frowned. "Is it a bad place?"

Claire sighed deeply. "I suppose that depends on who you ask. There are good people there, I'm sure, but there are bad people too."

"Are most people in England bad?" Tommy's face was serious now, as he remembered a conversation he'd heard one of his uncle's having recently. "Do the people in England not like us?"

_Ah, my boy. If you only knew what a difficult question that was. _Rose stopped next to her daughter and son. Reaching her arm around Tommy's shoulder, Rose squeezed him tightly. "There are bad people and good people in England, I expect, just like there are in Ireland, my boy. I think that most people are probably just people in most places."

Tommy turned to look at this mother, his eyes wide. "Do they look like us?"

"I expect so."

"Do they talk like us?"

Claire frowned over Tommy's head at Rose. "No, they don't speak…"

Rose cut her off. "They speak English, like we do sometimes. And some of them might speak a little Gaelic, I expect, if they have someone to teach them."

"Do they eat fish on Fridays too, like we do?"

"If they're Catholic, they do."

"Do they ride streetcars?"

"If they live in cities, yes, I expect so."

"Do they have babies?"

Rose's eyebrows came together for a moment. "Why yes, Tommy, they do have babies."

"Babies with brown curly hair and blue eyes?" His face was earnest as he asked the question.

_Where does my son come up with these questions?_ Rose paused a moment before answering him. _Was he thinking about the O'Malley family, that they'd seen at Mass last week? Mrs. O'Malley's just had a baby, whose eyes were blue, but her hair was most decidedly red._

"Yes, I suppose so. Why do you ask, my boy?"

Tommy turned away from his mother and looked out across the water. He looked like such a little man, his little green cap perched on his head. He stood silently, watching the waves roll in and out, a suddenly serious expression on his face. He turned towards his Ma again.

"Can I go there, someday?"

Claire let out a huff. "Why do you want to go there, and see all those fool English folk

when you can be happy right here, in Ireland? "

Tommy's mouth started to sink into a frown at his sister's words, the first time he'd been melancholy all day. Rose, determined not to let anything spoil their one precious day of pleasure, knelt down next to Tommy on the sand.

"Yes, Tommy. If you want to. You can go to England, or anywhere else you want, if you work hard and are a good boy and always do your very best in school. Someday."

A broad grin broke out across his face. Just then he saw his brother again out of the corner of his eye. Turning and waving in Sean's direction, Tommy began to shout. "I'm going to go to England someday, Sean! Ma says I can go to England and see who's on the other side of the ocean!"

"What, Tommy. Not who. You're going to see what's on the other side of the ocean." Mrs. Branson rose back to her feet as she corrected her son.

Tommy turned and gave her an odd look. "No, Ma. I don't want to see what's over there. I want to go see who is there. The pretty little baby, the one with brown curls and blue eyes." His own blue eyes looked at his mother seriously.

_My stars, the thing that child thinks._Not knowing quite how to respond, Mrs. Branson just patted him on the shoulder again and smiled. "Maybe you will, Tommy my boy, Maybe you will."

**Dublin, the Spring of 1919**

Rose read the page slowly, the memories of the day washing over her. _The pretty little baby with the brown curls and the blue eyes. _An image of Sybil flashed before her mind's eye. Aye. She was a pretty girl – a beautiful woman. And she did have those brown curls and blue eyes that her Tommy had spoken about so long ago. _Just as if he somehow knew. _

Setting the book down on the floor next to her, her right hand moved up instinctively to her forehead, then her chest, and to both shoulders. Closing her eyes, she murmured a prayer of thanks that her Tommy had finally found his English love.

_Just a closing note – I chose June 22 for Sybil's birthday because it is the saints day of St. Thomas More, an Englishman who was elevated by Henry VIII to high position in the church at a young age, though he later lost the king's favor because he refused to break with Rome. He turned his back on the king, and was eventually martyred for his rebellion against the royal family. Among his many virtues, St. Thomas More was unique among the men of his time in that he provided his daughters with the same education as his sons, and tried to influence other noble families to do the same. _


End file.
